I repeat it, the doctrine that the hereditary defectiveness of the masses can be corrected, both by culture and by education, is the true doctrine. Virtue, integrity, and well-doing are not sufficiently aimed at in earliest childhood. The head, and not the heart, comes in for the maximum of training. And yet right action is far more important than rare scholarship. The foundations of national prosperity and perpetuity are laid deep down in the bed-rock of individual character. Let the plodding, the thriftless, and the unaspiring of any country have the monopoly of peopling that country, and the race will gradually deteriorate, until finally the whole social fabric gives way, and the nation reverts back to barbarism or is blotted from the earth. When a nation exceeds more in quantity than in quality, it is in a bad plight. Ignorance and lack of character in the masses will never breed wisdom so long as ignorance and lack of character in the individual breed folly. The intelligent tradesman, the thrifty mechanic, and the sturdy yeomanry constitute the foundation of a nation--the proud assurance of her perpetuity, her prosperity, and her strength. "Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates and men decay; Princes and lords may flourish or may fade; A breath can make them, as a breath has made; But a bold peasantry, their country's pride, When once destroyed, can never be supplied." I tell you, friends, we do not half comprehend the importance of looking after the unfortunate children of our streets. What said the great and good Teacher on this subject? "Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of My Father who is in heaven." And when I see the neglected, sad-faced, prematurely old, weary-eyed little ones, in the purlieus of vice and crime, there is just one thought, that comes like a ray of sunlight through the rifts of cloud, and it is this: There is not one of these uncombed, unwashed, untaught little pensioners of care that has not some kind angel heart that is pitying it in the heavens above. Parents may be harsh and brutal, communities may be cold and neglectful; but the angels must ever regard them with eyes luminous with tender pity. What shall we do with these children? Good people everywhere should combine to care for them and teach them. Churches should make it an important part of their work to look after them. The law of self-preservation, if no higher law, demands that they should be looked after. How shall they be looked after? By establishing free kindergartens in every destitute part of large cities.